Why this turned out to be a flop - but still remains a good movie

Rating: 8/10 (27 August 2005)

The trailers were not sufficiently convincing that this is more than your typical wannabe blockbuster action flick. The marketing department has screwed this up really badly.
The movie's over-length (way more than 2 hours) is not justified. The whole plot could have been very well transported in a 90 minute time frame, cutting out some mindless chases and exaggerated stunts and fillers that were detrimental to the movie's overall credibility.
Too much of the movie's budget went into expensive stunt work and Fx that in effect is nothing but bloat and adds little to the plot. Excess action only works to a certain extent - exceed that threshold and it becomes parody.
The product placement was just horrible and in many places very distracting. Why place xbox 360 banners inside the "prison" that clones spend their daily routine in? There are no products to buy there, except a few drinks based using reward cards.
Overall this movie is still very entertaining, despite several major (plot and execution) flaws. I liked it - for mere entertainment value it was better than Gattaca and Minority Report in my opinion.